


Tenorjolras

by truethingsproved



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:49:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/truethingsproved/pseuds/truethingsproved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras is a tenor whom Grantaire quite literally runs into. Cosette Thenardier is a lyric soprano who spends too much time on fire escapes kissing boys who taste like ashes and watching boys straight out of faery tales. Jehan works in a flower shop and looks up from his book one day to see Courfeyrac standing behind the roses. Eponine Fauchelevent’s an English student who goes into a book store to replace her copy of Paradise Lost after she’s misplaced hers only to find a beautiful boy with a pair of glasses holding it in his hands, trying to find its owner. Feuilly's a stage hand who might be in a little over zir head with a certain bass. Musichetta is a coloratura teaching voice lessons while making arrangements to start auditioning in the city, Bossuet is the cyclist who rides into a parked car, and Joly is the intern who checks him for a concussion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrid_fischer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrid_fischer/gifts).



They meet entirely by accident.

Grantaire has been making deliveries for the Prouvaires’ flower shop since he was sixteen. He has no gift for flowers, not the way Jehan does (Jehan, lovely Jehan, the boy gives the flowers dramatic readings of his favorite Poe pieces on rainy days to keep them occupied), but he has the lean, easy musculature of someone who’s never had to work for it, he has a truck, and he needs money.

He’s made deliveries to the local performing arts school more times than he can count. Recitals! Plays! Musicals! Operas! Concerts! He’s delivered for them all, carrying in bouquets and vases to set up around the stage just as Jehan had ordered before he’d left.

Normally, the theater is empty, or occupied by only a handful of people who are, like him, setting up.

Today, he walks in on Lucifer himself.

To be fair, he’s just doing his work, carrying in the floral arrangements to put them where Jehan told him, when he nearly collides with someone.

“Watch it,” he hisses, trying to steady the flowers, and a pair of too-soft hands fold around his to help with the steadying. Grantaire peers over the top of the plants and nearly gasps; it’s only the second pair of hands that keeps the flowers from falling.

The hands, it seems, are attached to a tall boy with porcelain skin and thick, sun-colored curls that fall loosely to his shoulders. His eyes are blue, but the way the sky is blue after a snow storm, almost more grey than anything. His mouth, though, is what draws Grantaire’s attention—perfectly shaped, his lower lip curved in a full half-moon and bitten a flushed red.

“Sorry about that,” the boy is saying, but he could be reading a phone book or reciting Livy and Grantaire would be enthralled. “Didn’t see you there. Let me grab those for you—” and then suddenly the weight is gone from Grantaire’s arms and he’s getting an unobstructed view of the boy, who’s turning around now to bring the flowers over to the stage.

He’s wearing a pair of black jeans and a black tee shirt and Grantaire would assume stage hand if not for the way pretty much everything about him screams performer. The way he shakes his hair back, the set of his jaw, his shoulders held back and his chin held up. He walks like he owns the stage, the entire theater, and honestly, Grantaire can’t blame him.

“Where should I leave them?” the boy calls, and Grantaire reluctantly drags his eyes up from where they’ve been resting almost reverently on the small of his back and his damn near perfect ass to look up at his face. It says a lot about Grantaire’s self-control that he’s able to do this without a) saying something horrifically embarrassing or b) outright fainting.

Instead, he just points, and by the time the boy’s stood up again Grantaire has bolted to his truck to get the rest of the flowers.

\------

He’s got long auburn hair—proper auburn, too, none of the shit that Cosette tried back in her freshman year—tied into a braid that hangs over his shoulder with a black ribbon, and the jeans he’s wearing look painted on, which is, as far as Courfeyrac’s concerned, entirely unfair and possibly illegal. He’s got his feet kicked up on the counter and he’s wearing a pair of combat boots that have seen better days, along with a long jacket with too many buckles and straps that makes him look like Lord Byron stepped out of the nineteenth century to slay vampires. There’s the lightest hint of kohl around his eyes and his lower lip is trapped between small, bright teeth.

Courfeyrac is trying not to stare but he finds it justified when a light, delicate voice, one that fits this what Courfeyrac realizes he’s been imagining the boy would sound like, lets out a shrieked “ _Shit!_ _”_  

“Err.” Courfeyrac clears his throat and the boy behind the counter’s head shoots up and he scowls.

“It better be important,” he snaps, his eyes fierce, as though he’s still caught in the book.

Courfeyrac raises his hands in surrender. “No, sorry, just… startled.”

“Oh.” There’s a light blush coloring his cheeks, as if the boy realizes that he’s just shouted at a customer. “Sorry about that.” He looks at Courfeyrac apologetically and holds his book up with a wry smile, his blush spreading. It’s  _Wuthering Heights._  ”I’ve read this a thousand times but when Heathcliff’s ‘ _I cannot live without my life_ ’ speech comes up I lose it every single time.” _  
_

“I feel you,” Courfeyrac says sympathetically, and the boy swings his legs over so he can stand, setting his book down and coming to where Courfeyrac is standing by a huge display of roses.

He barely comes up to Courfeyrac’s shoulder but already Courfeyrac is bowled over and knows, just  _knows_ , he’s done for.

The boy’s hands are long and graceful as he reaches out to pluck a rose from the center of the display and rearrange it. He’s wearing several silver rings on both hands, and the one on his left middle finger looks almost like armor, covering two knuckles. “Buying for a girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Friend of an indeterminate or unspecified or nonbinary gender?”

“No?”

“Okay, good.”

Courfeyrac chuckles as the boy gestures for him to follow, and of course he does; he can’t exactly say no to a beauty like that. “It’s for a friend’s recital. She’s a soprano,” he adds, as if that might help—and from the knowing snort that the boy gives, it does. “A coloratura.”

“So the world revolves around her? When she needs to change a lightbulb, she just stands and holds the bulb and the world turns around her, yadda yadda?”

“Pretty much,” Courfeyrac says, and the boy snickers.

“Let me see if I can’t find something for her. What do you want it to say?”

“Can you say ‘you’ve got some bitchin’ talent and if I could kiss your voice on the mouth I would’ in flower-speak?”

The boy snickers again. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Well, thank you, Lestat.”

“I’m more like Armand, actually. Young and deadly with the face of a Botticelli angel, you get it.” The boy looks up and grins. “Jean Prouvaire. If I like you I let you call me Jehan.”

“How will I know if you like me?” Courfeyrac asks, and Jehan looks up at him through impossibly long lashes.

“You’ll know,  _monsieur._  Trust me, you’ll know.”

\------

It’s just a book, and it really shouldn’t be upsetting her this much.

Except that Eponine Fauchelevent has been writing notes in the margins of that beat-up paperback for, quite literally, years. That book has been her constant companion. Her father bought it for her when she turned fourteen; it was a cheap paperback mass-produced for some huge chain bookstore, but she adored it. Adored the way the margins had kept a closer record of her life than any diary ever could—she could run her fingers under the shaky pen marks underlining a line that spoke to her and remember exactly how she’d felt.

The book is eight years old and this is the first time it’s ever been lost or misplaced and somewhere in the back of her mind she feels as though she’s lost a friend.

Eponine doesn’t get emotional over things like this, though, and so she’s standing in the independent book store in town, most definitely  _not_  mourning the loss of a book that she’s had longer than any home or any friends (the dangers, she muses, of moving so much; everyone assumes army brat but no, Papa just doesn’t like to stay in one place; he doesn’t feel safe, there’s something he’s not telling her, but no matter how much she questions it he doesn’t tell her). When she’d told Jehan, he’d cried a bit, and removed the black velvet ribbon from his hair where it had tied his braid off, and thrust it into her hands, promising that as soon as he was off of work he’d go looking for it in the English department.

In the meantime, though, she’s got a thesis to write, and she’s definitely not emotional about this, not even a little bit, which is why she doesn’t immediately turn her head to the side so that her hair falls in front of her face and she can avoid detection. Conversation is the last thing she needs and for some reason everyone assumes that a girl in a book store wants to talk.

She blames the presentation of women in indie films and wants to strangle the sense of entitlement that accompanies these unwanted conversation starters with her hipster scarf and then skip away happily.

The man who walked into the bookstore is passing by her now and she keeps her head down, though she does catch a glimpse of him from underneath her hair. It’s a testament to how upset she is over losing this book that she doesn’t even check him out—his hair is cropped close to his skull in a fade, his eyes behind his plastic-framed glasses a grey so light they’re almost white. The serious set of his mouth suits him.

But she’s not noticing any of this because  _she wants her book back_  and she closes her eyes and shakes her head, about to just walk out of the store and return to a huge search of the entire campus yet again, when someone clears their throat.

Her eyes fly open and it’s the man from before, holding something out for her. “Any chance this is yours?” he’s asking, but she barely hears him because he’s got it.

He’s got her book.

Bent and torn-up cover, pages stained from coffee, the back cover half torn off, the spine creased and cracked from where she’s opened and reopened to her favorite parts.

Their hands touch when she grabs for the book happily and her entire face lights up so quickly that he actually laughs, and the laugh suits him just as well as the seriousness. “How did you—”

“I found it in the deli a few blocks over; I figured that if someone lost a copy like this, they’d be looking for another, so, book store.” She must be giving him a questioning look—she’s not sure what her face is doing at all, really, so she can’t really say either way—and his laugh fades into a comfortable smile. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days. “I couldn’t bear to see a book that was so obviously loved separated from anyone who cared enough to color-code marginal notes.”

“I—” How do you respond to this? Eponine clears her throat. “I can’t thank you enough.”

He inclines his head at this. “No thanks necessary. I’m glad it’s back home.” Before she can respond he’s nodding a goodbye at her and walking back towards the door to the bookstore.

There’s no slip of paper with his name and number hidden in the first pages of the book, like she’d have expected given the number of terrible romantic comedies she’s watched and not-so-secretly loved, because fuck guilty pleasures, there’s nothing guilty about being happy. And by the time she thinks to call after him and ask for a name, he’s already out the door.

Eponine’s hands are practically itching for a pen and she curves her arm around the book, holding it to her chest, as she rummages in her bag for a pen, which she bites down on to hold while she searches for something to write on.

\------

The flowers are all set up and Grantaire leans against his truck, a cigarette hanging from his lips as he fumbles around in his pockets for a lighter.

He doesn’t think of the beautiful boy.

He certainly doesn’t go still when the boy comes out of the theater, bringing a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun.

He most  _definitely_  doesn’t need to try twice before he can produce a flame on his lighter when the boy simply watches him right back.

Grantaire breathes out a plume of smoke in the boy’s direction and has to suppress a smile at the way the corner of his mouth twitches upward at the smell of tobacco. There’s a shout from inside the theater—” _Enjolras!_ “—and the boy glances over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.

Someone—the boy, Grantaire assumes—starts singing, though Grantaire is too far away to really hear it. After a few minutes, when he can’t focus on his cigarette anymore, he creeps closer to the open door that leads backstage so that he can hear better and he reels back as if struck when he finally hears it, clear and loud and strong in a way that singers twice his age could never achieve. He wants to describe it as summer. He wants to describe it as red.

The only way he can think to describe it is  _Enjolras_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> psst hey lovelies warning for Bossuet getting injured and noticing some blood.
> 
> For Lily, as always. <3

Dietrich is asleep on Grantaire’s chest again. Given that she’s still unbelievably tiny, even though she’s edging on a year old now, he could probably scoop her up to cradle in the crook of his elbow without her waking up (though moving her away from him, his familiar smell and body heat, absolutely would). All the same, he doesn’t move, staring instead at his ceiling, the fingers of one hand dragging over her fur, the other hand coming to rest on his forehead.

He’d cover his eyes but he’s pretty sure he’d see the same thing regardless. Those curls, the same color as the sun peeking out from behind the almost bloody reds and pinks of sunrise; stormy blue-grey eyes; the strong set of a jaw accustomed to being clenched. The full lower lip curving up in spite of himself when Grantaire breathed cigarette smoke in his direction, the way his eyes widened as he inhaled it, his teeth biting into that perfect lip.

(Grantaire imagines sinking his own teeth into that lip and shifts uncomfortably, making Dietrich open one eye to glare blearily at him before digging her claws into his shirt and falling back asleep.)

The rumble of that voice, lower in speaking than he’d have imagined from someone who sings with such an angelic tenor.  _Enjolras_. Even the  _name_  is musical. Grantaire’s not a man for rambling metaphors but he’d spend the next hundred years trying to find the perfect one to describe the curve of that lip.

“We’re fucked, kid,” he tells Dietrich softly, and she mews in response, sticking him with her claws at the sound before pressing her tiny, wet nose to the side of his hand. “We are totally fucked.”

\------

It had started out as a joke ( _“Blow me.” “Not in my job description, pretty boy bass.”_ ) and then it was a stolen, bruising kiss caught between curtains with Feuilly’s boss on one side and Bahorel’s friends on the other and them granted fleeting privacy as Bahorel let out a quiet sigh and fisted his hand in the mess of red hair. Then it was Bahorel’s smug grin against zir lips ( _“I knew it.” “Shut up.”_ ) and long bruises the shape of fingers along Feuilly’s too-pale sides, between zir ribs.

Then it was “blow me” accompanied by Feuilly’s eyebrows shooting up and zir cigarette being stubbed out on the wall of the theater and Bahorel’s jeans pooled around his ankle as ze made it clear that under no uncertain circumstances was Feuilly someone to be taken lightly. They were just lucky there was no one else around, because not even Bahorel’s hand in Feuilly’s hair and his teeth digging into the heel of his other hand could keep him from letting out stuttered curses.

It was months of “don’t you dare tell anyone” “why, thought you’d go for a tenor?” “my boss doesn’t need a reason to get rid of me and I don’t want to give him one” and Feuilly not bringing anyone home from bars, almost without zir realizing, and Bahorel spending too much time in his dressing room, Feuilly splayed out underneath him.

It’s not love and it’s not a relationship the way anyone would expect them to classify it but they like each other, Feuilly likes that ze can alternate between hitting Bahorel and flicking zir tongue out along the map of scars along his arms and chest, Bahorel likes that he can share a beer with the lanky, underfed sophomore who gives him more shit than anyone else combined and then leave him with bite marks so obvious someone should have put two and two together by now.

But Feuilly has mastered the art of staying invisible and Bahorel’s never been the kind of man you test, and so if anyone’s put two and two together nobody’s saying anything.

That’s the danger of it, though, complacency, because you start forgetting to keep on top of things and then one minute you’re having a fantastic time, reveling in the ache that you know will mean a map of scratches down your back for you to trace in the shower until you’re wincing away from the hot water with a grin that has everything to do with how much fun it was getting those scratches, and the next the door you forgot to lock is opening and one of the other basses is poking his head through the door and his eyebrows are shooting upward behind his glasses and Bahorel’s stopping, his hands still on your hips, to say, “Yes, can I help you with something?”

Combeferre just shakes his head. “No, sorry,” he says quickly, pausing only to lock the door behind him as he pulls it shut.

There’s really not much to do after that.

\------

“Put some emotion into this, Cosette, please. Tosca’s entire world is crashing around her and you look put out that you’re in your voice lesson. Which I’m sure is devastating to your schedule, but doesn’t quite reach the level we need for Tosca.”

Cosette wants to offer some snappy response but if she did that Musichetta would very sweetly verbally eviscerate her. It’s sort of Musichetta’s thing—she pulls her thick braid over one shoulder and takes one of her locs between her fingers before smiling gently and explaining that she’s a fucking professional and that it’s a goddamn  _privilege_  to study under her, so if any of them want to go elsewhere and study with someone who will let them get away with fucking around and not doing things right the first fucking time she’ll gladly sign whatever she has to in order for them to drop the class.

Nobody ever takes her up on that offer. It’s because Musichetta’s right, she’s a fucking gift straight from heaven, and it absolutely is a privilege to study with her, and you won’t get the kind of skill you want by not singing  _Vissi d’arte_  like your soul’s being ripped out and spat on and ground under Scarpia’s heel.

And so Cosette just nods, watches the way Musichetta’s long brown fingers tap against the ivory piano keys, and tries again.

 _Quante miserie conobbi aiutai_  brings her to A5 twice in as many measures and she’s really not warmed up enough for this.  _Perch_ _è, perchè Signor?_  brings her a half step higher but she hits it, she hits it and for a moment she’s not Cosette Thénardier, she’s Floria Tosca and she’s pleading to knowwhy she’s been abandoned.

When she finishes, Musichetta’s looking at her with an amused but pleased smile. “And there we go,” she says, sounding proud, and Cosette flushes despite herself, because if she’s being frank the only person about whose approval she really cares is Musichetta. “That’s Tosca.”

\------

“Did you get what you needed from Bahorel?”

“Ah. No.” Combeferre closes the door to Enjolras’ dressing room before sitting on the floor, tucking his legs underneath him. “He was busy.”

“He’s sleeping with the stage hand you like, isn’t he?”

“Feuilly? Yeah.”

“Called it,” Enjolras comments mildly, flipping to the next page in his book. He looks up just long enough to flash Combeferre a bright, comfortable smile, and on a whim Combeferre pushes himself up from the floor to lean forward and press his mouth to Enjolras’.

Immediately, Enjolras sets his book down to curl one hand around the back of Combeferre’s neck. They’ve been close since they met their freshman year; they, along with a baritone named Courfeyrac, have been near inseparable since then. They click, though, on a level that Enjolras and Combeferre both don’t quite know how to describe, and so they don’t really question it anymore.

Kissing just sort of happened; they shared everything else, from clothes to books to advice to living space, and it really hadn’t been strange at all for Combeferre to teach Enjolras how to kiss their sophomore year, and they just never stopped after that.

They kiss for a few minutes, comfortable with the familiarity of the other’s mouth, before Combeferre pulls back and sits on the floor again.

“I think they don’t want anyone to know,” Combeferre says thoughtfully, and Enjolras frowns. “Otherwise, Bahorel would have told us, wouldn’t he have? Especially since he’s had a thing for Feuilly for a while now.”

“That makes sense,” Enjolras says, and Combeferre nods, looking mollified, before taking Enjolras’ book from his hand. “Did you end up finding the owner of that copy of  _Paradise Lost_?”

Combeferre pauses, then flushes, then looks up at Enjolras with a smile that’s almost bordering on shy, and Enjolras can’t help but laugh and reach out to tug his best friend closer and kiss him again.

\------

There are about a hundred ways that this could have happened that wouldn’t have been so intensely dramatic but, Musichetta supposes, that’s what makes it so interesting.

There is a very loud  _crash_ , followed by another thump, then a sickening cracking sound, and then a very weak “ _I’m okay._ ”

Musichetta nearly drops her bag rushing over to the source of the voice, and when she sees him she actually stops in her tracks. He’s tall, probably just under six feet of lean muscle, even though she’s taller; he runs a hand across the back of his shaved head as if to feel for injuries and winces. He looks up and sees her and actually gapes before clearing his throat.

“I think I’m alright—sorry about that, is this your car?” he asks, and Musichetta spares a glance for the car before shaking her head and kneeling. “I’ll just bike over to—”

“I don’t think biking anywhere is a good idea right now,” Musichetta points out softly, with a wry grin and a click of her tongue against her teeth. “Come on. I’ll drive you.” He looks like he’s about to protest but his hand stops moving and his fingers come away from the back of his head bloody.

He stands, shakily, and Musichetta helps him up, one hand curled around his elbow. He can’t put weight onto his left leg, and so she helps him to her car, leaving the bike (tire bent too badly to ride) against the side of the music building. No one will touch it there.

She gets into the car and puts her keys into the ignition before extending her hand. “I’m Musichetta,” she says, smiling a little more than she usually would when his hand closes around her, his grip firm and warm. His skin is a few shades lighter than hers and his eyes are huge, framed by long lashes. His smile is easy and his voice is almost melodic. She tries not to shiver.

“Lesgle,” he answers, and he doesn’t let go of her hand.

Lesgle, it turns out, is a law student with what he describes as exceptionally bad luck. Apparently this is not the first time he’s ridden his bike into a parked car. It is, however, the first time he’s had an “angel” there to bring him to the hospital.

“You have to have something else you could be doing right now,” he says, his hand in his lap and not wrapped around hers anymore, and Musichetta shrugs, knowing that she could be making calls about setting up auditions, knowing that she could be looking at better apartments, knowing that there are a thousand things that would be better to do than to bring a beautiful man with a possible concussion to the ER.

“Not really,” she replies. When they reach the hospital, she bites her lip, frowning, and then before she can stop herself says, “Do you want me to come in with you?” and then they’re both talking at the same time.

“I couldn’t possibly—”

“I’m not doing anything else today—”

“—in that case, I mean, company would be nice.”

“—I couldn’t just leave you here without anyone else.”

They exchange matching embarrassed smiles and then Musichetta’s getting out of the car, opening the door for him and keeping a hand at the small of his back to help steady him.

They’re not going to actually get out of the emergency room for hours. Neither of them really minds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow! This has been shockingly fun to continue writing, and the response has been so overwhelmingly wonderful :) thank you all so, so much!
> 
> As always, huge thanks to Emily, Kaitlyn, Elizabeth, and Chesh for reading it over for me, and huge thanks to Lily for existing. <3


	3. Chapter 3

When Grantaire moved into the flat across from the Prouvaires’ flower shop, he’d given Jehan a key simply because he needed someone else to have a key. Just in case he got locked out, just in case there was an emergency.

At first Jehan used the key sparingly, coming in to check on plants when he hadn’t heard from Grantaire for a while, coming in to check on Dietrich, coming in to check on Grantaire. Now, though, after knowing each other so long, Jehan simply comes in as if he owns the place. (To be fair, he does more for the apartment than Grantaire does—decorates, cleans, cooks, half lives here himself.)

Which is why he throws himself into the apartment with the python wrapped around his neck and shrieks, “You need to watch Rezso tonight; I have a date.” From where he’s curled around Jehan’s wrist, Rezso seems unfazed by the shouting; he’s used to it from Jehan and Grantaire.

About a year before, right before Grantaire got Dietrich, Jehan had bought the snake (“an albino lavender reticulated python, thank you very much,” Jehan had huffed in exasperation). Grantaire ended up naming him accidentally (Rezso Seress, after the Hungarian pianist who wrote Jehan’s favorite song) one day while feeding him while Jehan was experimenting with name, and after that they’d simply decided to share custody of the snake. Dietrich likes Rezso well enough, but that’s mostly because she sleeps on one of Grantaire’s bookcase while Rezso hangs lazily from Grantaire’s limbs. Grantaire watches him on occasion when Jehan has other obligations—his grandmother visiting, for example, or potentially bringing someone home.

“Is this the baritone you’ve been going on about?” Grantaire asks, setting his book down and yawning. Dietrich is asleep on his chest again and he’s not about to disturb her. Jehan sighs loudly and sits dramatically on the bar stool he’d found on the corner two streets over and repainted after Grantaire had fixed it up a bit.

“His  _name_ ,” Jehan says dramatically, swinging the hand not occupied by the snake, “is Marcelin de Courfeyrac, and he’s not  _just_  a baritone, Grantaire, he’s playing Baron Scarpia in that production of Tosca we’re going to see.”

“We’re going to a production of Tosca?” Grantaire asks lazily, not bothering to ask who the fuck Baron Scarpia is, because Jehan will probably just start gasping at him and making him watch depressing opera again (he’d learned that the hard way, when he asked what the big deal about La Bohème was).

Jehan simply flashes him a withering look that somehow manages to be endlessly loving at the same time. “We are now, silly. So. Can you watch him tonight?”

“Nope. Work tonight. I’m sure M. Marcelin de Courfeyrac, baritone extraordinaire, will appreciate your taste in pets.” Grantaire grins, looking down at Dietrich fondly as she stirs from where she’s curled up. “You’ll have a lovely time and you’ll have mind-blowing sex and you can call me when I get off of work to tell me all about it.”

Dietrich wakes and hisses angrily when Grantaire lets out a loud, bellowing laugh after Jehan whines, “But how am I going to explain a snake  _and_  a hedgehog?”

\------

If Joly loved his job any less he’d have quit by now. He’s not made for thirty-six-hour shifts with quick naps whenever he can grab them; he’s not made for skipping meals and working more than eighty hours a week whenever he can. He does it anyway, though, because he loves his job.

It’s not just a job to him, though. It’s a career. It’s a passion. It’s a drive so deep that even on his days off he’s jittery and nervous, wishing desperately to be back at the hospital, answering questions and watching surgeries. (He’ll never forgive Grey’s Anatomy or House for making it seem like all surgeons do is fuck in elevators and make snide remarks to their patients. Hell, he’ll never forgive them for being less medically accurate than  _Scrubs_.)

He’s cheerful today, as ever, even though he’s coming to the tail end of his last twenty-four hour shift of the week before two beautiful days off (during which time he might actually sleep). He loves working the ER almost as much as he loves surgeries, because he actually gets to help people.

And that’s what matters. Helping people.

Like a man and his friend, the man with tissues pressed to the back of his head where he’ll certainly need stitches, his other hand dirty and bloody and curled around the woman’s.

What doesn’t matter is that they’re the single most attractive people that Joly has ever seen, in or out of the hospital. What doesn’t matter is that the woman, Musichetta, has a smile that makes him weak at the knees, or that the man, Lesgle, keeps biting at his lip and looking up at him through his eyelashes.

Joly is good at what he does. But he feels like he’s barely out of a high-school biology class when they’re watching him.

Musichetta is a singer and a voice teacher at the local performing arts school and Lesgle is a law student taking a year off to work and no, they’re not a couple (Joly wonders if he’s imagining it that both of them glance up at him with smiles that suggest that they’d very much like him to take advantage of that knowledge).

Ordinarily, Joly cannot be distracted from his work.

This is not an ordinary situation.

\------

Montparnasse is late.

To be fair, Montparnasse is usually late. Which is, to say the least, frustrating, but this also means that, really, Cosette doesn’t expect much else.

At her left, Marius sits almost nervously, fidgeting on the bench outside the theater, near the bus stop. She glances at him curiously and raises one dark eyebrow, frowning.

“You do realize I’m not going to eat you, right?” she asks, and she’s only half-teasing, and Marius’ face lights up in that silly little smile he always wears with her.

“I found something for you,” he says without preamble, and then he’s rummaging through his laptop case, where he’s shoved everything else he carries. They do this sometimes, these little snatches of conversation when no one else is around. The others tend to command attention, even around the best lyric soprano of her age and of the school—there is sometimes just no way to miss Courfeyrac wearing Cosette’s costumes and grinning ear to ear (he does look good in Tosca’s white dress), or Bahorel’s huge frame towering over that red-headed stage hand he seems to get along with, or Enjolras shouting about politics or why he hates PETA while Combeferre plays absently with his hair until he stops yelling ( _Enjolras, you’re our lead tenor and you’re going to hurt your vocal cords with all of this shouting)_.

Cosette bites her lip as he looks and tries not to show that she has any reaction at all. She’s not interested in Marius with his easy laugh and his gentle smile and his sweet voice, she’s not looking to kiss that lovely mouth or memorize the dusting of freckles along his nose or press her lips to the shadows cast on his cheekbones by long lashes.

She’s  _not_.

She’s especially not in these few quiet moments they have together, when the others are gone and he’s sitting outside with her while she waits for Montparnasse to come pick her up.

The thing with Montparnasse is that he’s as hard and cold as she is sometimes, and as much as she likes Marius, Marius won’t understand the rush, the thrill, of knuckles grinding into skin or the absolute grace that is picking a lock. Montparnasse knows to grin his wolf’s grin at her when she leaps down from a fire escape and into his grasp, understands that she likes him best when he tastes of whiskey.

Montparnasse doesn’t complain when she goes a hundred and ten down an empty highway.

Montparnasse steals her roses and silks and makes her the queen of some underworld her father thinks he rules, but she’s the kingmaker and she’s made Montparnasse in her image so he can keep her in control. She’s not sure sometimes if he’s the king or the throne.

And Montparnasse is late.

And Marius is pulling out a battered paperback and sliding it into her hands. “It was my mother’s,” he explains, and she remembers with a jolt that he’d mentioned going through the last of his mother’s things. She turns the book over in her hands— _The Bread Givers._  “She really loved it; said it reminded her of growing up back home. Anyway, I thought you might like it.”

Before Cosette can quite stop herself she’s leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek, murmuring a soft “thank you” that leaves him flushed.

\------

There’s a second-hand book store about three miles outside of town and it’s one of Enjolras’ favorite places. He goes whenever he can manage it, which really isn’t as often as he’d like, and with rehearsals eating away at his time he really hasn’t had the opportunity to head down there in a while.

He’s building a frankly impressive private library of books on music history, devoted almost primarily to music and revolution and how they intersect and impact one another, otherwise dotted by a few anthologies, and several books on music in the wars. He’s growing terribly fond of cabaret and he avoids corporate chains when he can, so it seems like a perfectly fine reason to take a walk, clear his head.

What is  _not_  fine is that whoever’s working in the book store today has decided that shouting at someone on the phone is conducive to selling books (“ _Are you shitting me right now? What has ever given you the impression that you can return damaged books that_ you _damaged?_ ”). Enjolras massages his temples and frowns, closing his eyes briefly.

This book store is one of the only places he hasn’t shared with his friends. Normally he’d bring Combeferre or Courfeyrac or both with him to a place like this, with its overstuffed armchairs and chipped tables and mismatched antique lamps lighting every corner and every little reading nook. It’s perfect, the sort of place they’d love, but every now and again Enjolras indulges in a bit of selfishness.

He wants to keep this place for himself. At least for a little while, until it loses the magic it holds, if that day ever comes.

The man working slams the phone down and lets out a string of curses under his breath that Enjolras only barely catches. “Sorry about that,” the man calls, his back turned to the rest of the store (the set of his shoulders suggests that he’s glaring balefully at the telephone). “Bullshit customers.”

His voice sounds familiar but Enjolras is already half-lost in the pages of an old hardcover copy of  _The Count of Monte Cristo_  that had been sitting on a table and he calls back a faint, “It’s all good.”

“Can I help you find anything?” the man asks, and when Enjolras says no he actually lets out a sigh of relief. “Good, because I need a fucking cigarette after that shit. Don’t steal anything and shout if you need help. I’ll be right in the back.”

This man, clearly, has very strange ideas of good customer service, but Enjolras won’t argue. He’s not here to talk to people.

After about twenty minutes of wandering and letting out low, frustrated growls, Enjolras has to admit that he does need help. Someone’s moved everything in the weeks since he’s gotten down here and he can’t for the life of him find German history—which is absolutely ridiculous, because really, why would you move German history? The man from before is still in the back and so Enjolras approaches the counter, calls out a reasonably loud “Excuse me?” and returns to the shelves, frowning at the books in front of him.

There’s a slam of a door, then the overwhelming but pleasant smell of tobacco that stops just a few feet away from him. “I’m looking for anything you might have on music in the Weimar Republic? A friend suggested I also ask to see if you have Peter Gay’s book on Weimar culture. I think that might be the title, actually, I should have written it down—”

but then Enjolras falls silent, too, because he  _knew_  that voice sounded familiar.

The man lets out a rasping cough and clears his throat and lets out a soft  _oh_ and Enjolras tries not to remember dry hands underneath his and a mess of curls and icy eyes peeking out from behind a vase of flowers and a lithe and graceful body leaning against a truck.

Enjolras tries and, as he rarely ever does, Enjolras fails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's been ART oh gosh c:
> 
> -http://jen-suis.tumblr.com/post/47548709008/things-from-tenojolras-by-ani-3-ahhh-perfect  
> -http://aparticularlygoodfinder.tumblr.com/post/47513277156/hes-got-her-book-bent-and-torn-up-cover-pages
> 
> and nnnnn it's so GORGEOUS I could cry oh gosh you're all really great <3
> 
> also have some Grantaire/Dietrich silliness: http://duskjolras.tumblr.com/post/47879253235/hello-enjolras-frowns-are-you-busy-he
> 
> Rezso taken from tumblr user daylighthound's headcanon and art with her permission (http://daylighthound.tumblr.com/post/47416847117) and Jehan's hedgehog done on request by the lovely Hester (wutherings). Endless forever thank-yous to Emily, Chesh, Kaitlyn, and Elizabeth, as per usual. <3 <3 <3
> 
> (if you want to make anything for Tenorjolras, please tag it with 'tenorjolras' or my URL or both--I'm duskjolras on Tumblr. Also feel free to drop by and chat c: you're all really really lovely!!! thank you so much for reading!!!)


	4. Chapter 4

History has been moved to the other end of the store and is arranged alphabetically by continent, then within those sections, alphabetically by region and within  _that_ , chronologically. Finding books on the Weimar Republic only takes a couple of minutes, and Grantaire's sure he's doing his job correctly, but all he can think is that this is a little bit ridiculous.

Because, really, he should have something useful to say right now, except, "At least you're not looking for French history."

Enjolras stiffens next to him, looking annoyed. "I study French history extensively and independently," he answers, sounding as irritated as he looks, and Grantaire flashes him a sympathetic smile.

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, god, you're one of  _those_  assholes."

"We've only just met and you're already calling me an asshole? This is all so sudden,  _monsieur_ , I'm all aflutter."

"Let me save you the trouble. French military history, ha ha ha, how hilarious, Napoleon, what a joke. French military victory? What's a French military victory? I think you mean French military defeat."

"Even historians don't take French history seriously," Grantaire points out, and Enjolras' drops his head into his hands and groans while Grantaire stands on his toes to reach the book in question.

"I  _know_. It's annoying." Enjolras opens his eyes just as Grantaire pushes himself entirely onto his toes, which is really endlessly easy in sneakers, and raises his eyebrows, clearly impressed. "Ballet, or impeccable balance?"

"Hah. Ballet. Fourteen years. Anyway, here you go," he says, pulling the book down from its shelf and handing it to Enjolras. "I'll get out of your way."

It might just be his imagination but there's a look of surprise on Enjolras' face when he shoots out a quick, "No, I--" It must be his imagination, because there's absolutely no reason Enjolras would stop him for anything. Enjolras clears his throat and frowns and already the easy irritation from earlier has faded and is replaced by a strange sort of apprehension.

Which, really, is entirely useless, because Grantaire can remember the way his voice sounds when he's singing and the way he'd leaned forward as if to try and breathe in the secondhand smoke. Grantaire is perfectly prepared for and content in knowing that Enjolras is a thousand miles out of his league.

What he isn't prepared for is the way Enjolras clears his throat again and taps the book against his palm, his lips parted while he searches for something to say. "Thanks," is all he ends up saying, and Grantaire nods, taking a step back, as Enjolras continues speaking. "Uh. When did you start working here? You must be new; I don't remember ever seeing you here before."

"Like, two weeks ago. Painted the mural over there; they decided to keep me on a few shifts a week. Extra cash and all." Grantaire points vaguely to the wall in question, but Enjolras' eyes don't shift to follow the direction of his finger. Instead, they linger on his lifted shoulder for a moment before darting back to his. "Do you, ah, come here often?"

 _Wow. Endlessly smooth._  

"Not nearly as often as I should. I thought you worked for the Prouvaires?"

"I do deliveries there too when I'm not working here."

It's casual small talk but it's stilted, probably because Enjolras clearly doesn't think much of him (really, though, jokes about French history, how clever, how  _original_ , Grantaire really can't blame him), and Enjolras hits the book against his palm again. "Thank you for your help. Again."

"It's no problem." It's almost a relief when Enjolras doesn't argue when Grantaire says, "shall I ring that out for you?"

As Enjolras is paying, he says suddenly, his voice a bit tighter than before, "actually, there was something else, I was wondering if you might be able to order it in?" He lists off the title of some rather obscure book that Grantaire only recognizes from his aborted art school career; it'll be difficult to get in, but...

"Leave your name and number and I'll see what I can do and call you if we can get it," he says, wrapping the book in tissue paper first before dropping it in a paper bag. Instead of waiting for a piece of paper Enjolras simply takes Grantaire's hand and a permanent marker from next to the register and writes his name and ten digits along his wrist.

When he's capped the marker and picked up the bag, he nods to Grantaire, and it's only when he's leaving that he turns to look over his shoulder, his curls literally swinging behind him, to add, "I think I might like to argue with you more," before pushing his way out the door and heading onto the street again.

It sounds like an invitation.

Grantaire enters the number into his phone, just in case it is one.

\------

There is absolutely no way that this is real. This sort of thing doesn't happen. You don't chase after girls with looping handwriting and battered copies of one of your favorite books. You don't think about her while you stare at the ceiling of your dorm room trying to get asleep, your best friend sleeping soundly across from you.

Combeferre's distracted. He's never distracted, not for anything, not beautiful eyes or laughs that make him think of rain in the summer. Not for the thought of a pen on well-loved pages or tapping against full lower lips. This is a problem. He can't sing like this. No, he can, and he does, but he's not  _good_ , and even Enjolras has said something, gentle but honest.

There are a handful of things Combeferre could do, but the best would be to try and distract himself from his distraction, hopefully with something mildly related. Mildly. Only just. The libraries at the performing arts school are small--which, honestly, is to be expected. They're a group of pretentious, usually wealthy, students who are studying there solely so that they can avoid the time-consuming gen ed requirements they'd have to take anywhere else. The library isn't going to  _have_  books on Circe and her presentation in literature, how Circe was adapted to fit the role of Eve in Milton's  _Paradise Lost._

(He wonders if Circe was as beautiful as the girl with the book and closes his eyes briefly because he's not supposed to be thinking this.)

The state university a ten-minute walk away is open to other students, though, and Combeferre takes full advantage of that.

Which is why he's there now, on the second floor, his fingers tracing along the spines of neatly organized books, looking for the title he'd written down on a cough drop wrapper and shoved into his pocket before heading over. He'll take the book out, sit on his windowsill, and read until Enjolras gets back to the dorm and Combeferre can do something (read: kiss his best friend until he forgets his own name) to take mind off of her so that maybe he can get something done for a change. He could use it, the familiarity that comes with Enjolras' mouth.

It's not sexual and it's not romantic and that confuses people, he thinks, that he and Enjolras are so close that it's just become natural to them. (He still doesn't see how it's anyone's business enough that they should be confused at all, because last he checked, they weren't involved in this...) It's comfort and care and intimacy and relief. It's that Combeferre is intensely stressed and all he wants right now is to pin Enjolras to a bed with his hips and kiss him until the tension is leeched out of his shoulders.

It's that his hand has just hit someone else's reaching for the same book and this isn't for  _real_ , these things don't actually happen in real life, not  _twice_ , but there she is, looking at him with wide but pleasantly bewildered eyes and he's suddenly struck by how lovely those eyes are, deep brown and endless in their warmth, framed by lashes so long they seem to cast shadows on her cheeks. Her lips curve to form a perfectly round  _o_  of surprise and she laughs, clearly as pleased by this as he is.

"We meet again," she says with a smile, and any hope Combeferre had of being able to concentrate at any point today is gone.

\------

There's a knock on her window, and Cosette doesn't bother to answer it.

She does this for a couple of reasons. The first is that she's in the middle of reading the book that Marius gave her, and she's fascinated. Marius' mother left little scraps of paper tucked between the pages and Cosette, unwilling to remove them forever, is writing down the notes written on these scraps and the pages where she found them so that she can return them later. It's like uncovering a diary; most of them seem to be letters, shredded for some reason or another, notes from school, perhaps anything she could get her hands on. Cosette wonders why they were torn up in the first place. She feels like an historian, crawling back into the years before to learn the stories of the women who came before her.

The second reason is that it's Montparnasse, and Montparnasse will just come in all the same. As always, he jimmies the window open--he's learned her windows well enough by now that it's not exceptionally difficult to get in whenever he wants--and climbs in, all catlike grace and wicked smiles. Cosette barely has time to set her book down before Montparnasse is climbing onto her bed and crawling up toward her.

"All this book learning," Montparnasse drawls, rolling his eyes, though his feral grin just gets wider as he leans forward to touch his lips to Cosette's. He tastes of a coppery tang that's all too much like blood for Cosette's liking, and when she drags her tongue across his lower lip she feels where he bit through part of it.

"My father had you running errands again?" she guesses with a yawn, settling back on her pillows while Montparnasse flattens himself over her.  His hair is sticking up in all directions, and he runs the tip of his tongue across the slight gap between his bottom front teeth. 

"Your father asked and I acquiesced," he answers, slipping a hand underneath the front of her shirt. "It's good to let him think he's still in control. Throw him a bone every now and again. Every empire falls in its time,  _ma petite alouette;_  I've nothing to gain by reminding the current emperor that, now, do I?"

His hand slides up across her ribs and sternum and Cosette arches up into him, gasping when he runs his fingers along the bottom of her bra. "Then it'll be you and me, Persephone," he practically purrs, sweeping her tee shirt up and over her head.

"Hades stole Persephone," Cosette reminds Montparnasse, her fingers already scrambling to push his leather jacket away from his shoulders, flying swiftly down along the buttons of his shirt. His mouth is making a trail from her jaw down along her neck and across her shoulder, biting and sucking and kissing in turn. For someone so easily brutal he's exceptionally gentle when he wants to be.

That, she thinks, is what makes him so dangerous, that you can look into his beautiful face and forget that he's the deadliest man you'll ever meet. She's watched him beat men twice his size half to death without batting an eyelash, seen the way he holds his hands up to the light to admire the way that the blood shines on his skin while he waits for one of the other men in Patron-Minette to bring him a fucking cigarette. And yet whenever they're together it's always attentive kisses and caresses, unless it's practically violent fucking that leaves them both covered in bruises and grinning at the ceiling.

"I'll learn from his mistakes," Montparnasse promises, lifting his mouth from where he'd fixed it just above her breast. "My Persephone. I couldn't keep you anywhere you didn't want to be even if I had the inclination to try. Now, come here and let me remind you why you should stay."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to Lily, Emily, Elizabeth, Kaitlyn, Lindsay, and Chesh for all of their help with this chapter!!! <3


	5. Chapter 5

There’s a scrap of paper with Musichetta’s number written on it in Lesgle’s pocket, and he’s trying not to panic.

It had been a stroke of pure luck that she was walking through the parking lot right when he’d gone flying off his bike—the bike that’s still at the college, so he’ll definitely have an excuse to go back there and hopefully see her again.

But just meeting the woman of his dreams, he could handle. It’s meeting her and the man of his dreams on the same day and not knowing what to do with any of what has happened to him.

His phone buzzes with a new text but he stares at the screen in front of him, an empty text with Musichetta’s number typed in, his fingers hovering over the keypad. After a few more minutes of deliberating, he sends a simple  _hey, how are you doing?_  and nearly flings his phone away from him in his rush to get it away from him.

It vibrates almost instantly, and he picks it up again to find another text, this from Musichetta. Lesgle’s grin could light a room, and he leans his head back on the pillows again, yawning and reading the text.

_I’m alright, but I’m not the one who got injured today. How are you?_

He grins at this, wondering if it means something that he’s immediately thinking of her voice when he reads that.  _i’m alright. let’s go get dinner._

A minutes later,  _Together?_

_yeah, why not?_

She doesn’t answer for several minutes and Lesgle lays back, his eyes trained on his bedroom ceiling, as he tries not to assume that he’s scared her away. Finally, his phone buzzes loudly, and he nearly falls off the bed trying to grab it and open the new text.

_Tomorrow night I get out of my last lesson at 6:30._

_want me to pick you up at 7?_  he types back, and Joly is forgotten, pushed to the back of his mind as he remembers Musichetta’s locs, the glimmer in her eyes when she’d make him laugh, the clearness of her speaking voice, like a cold stream in the summer. The curve of her lips as she smiled, the way she smelled like orange and ginger when she helped him up.

 _Definitely_ , she responds, and he sets he phone down with a small, satisfied smile.

He’s going on a date with Musichetta. Who he Googled, and who has videos on YouTube of performances with famous orchestras he knows nothing about across Europe, at least a dozen from last year alone. Her voice is unbelievable. Loud, strong, clear, but rich, with the kind of heaviness that he imagines is rare in soprano voices. She’s described as a “dramatic coloratura” on her website, and he could listen to her sing all day.

It’s not until he crawls into bed, pressing his fingers gingerly to the back of his head, that he thinks about Joly again, just as he’s drifting off to sleep.

The earlier unread text goes forgotten.

\------

Jobs are exhausting, but college is expensive and Feuilly figures that not being able to pay tuition will hurt more than the sleep lost for another shift. Besides, ze’s had fairly good luck so far with jobs—they pay well, the okay people outweigh the assholes in general. Besides, ze can play Concrete Blonde quietly in the gas station’s speakers when ze’s working on zir own, which is more often than it’s strictly supposed to be. It’s not all bad.

It’s not all bad, at least, until Bahorel walks into the gas station. He barely spares Feuilly a glance—and Feuilly isn’t sure whether or not to be grateful that he’s still apparently willing to keep this quiet, but ze absolutely cannot deny the sting at the complete lack of attention. Bahorel busies himself with a newspaper in the back corner, and Feuilly practically throws the next kid in line’s change at him.

Zir bitterness just grows and grows as Bahorel sips casually at his tall black coffee, sugar, no cream. It turns out to be an unnecessary bitterness, though, because Bahorel is on his feet, the newspaper folded under his arm and the coffee in his hands with a frown as he approaches the counter, his free hand tucked in his back pocket as he fumbles for a five to toss on the counter as Feuilly rings him out.

“You sure left fast today,” Bahorel comments lightly, though his eyebrows knit together in consternation. “I thought you’d wait for me after I finished.”

“I had shit to do,” Feuilly snaps, and the look Bahorel gives zir makes it clear that he’s not buying it. “It’s not all about you.”

“I don’t think it is.” The rumble of Bahorel’s voice is somehow soothing, even when Feuilly is so angry. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

Feuilly presses zir lips together as Bahorel stands up straight again, stepping to the side so that a customer can pay for their gas and candy bar. Once the customer is gone, Bahorel steps back, leans over the counter, pushes his fingers against Feuilly’s and withdrawing them when Feuilly yanks zir hand back. “Your friend’s not going to say anything, is he?” ze asks, the frustration from earlier draining, and Bahorel’s eyes widen slightly.

“Combeferre’s not going to say anything,” Bahorel sighs, standing up and scowling. “Why don’t we just go public?”

Feuilly actually drops zir bottle of water, letting out a hiss of displeasure when it starts to spill. It’s not that ze doesn’t want to admit to…  _whatever_  this is, it’s that ze doesn’t know if ze can afford it. The manager at the theater is terrible. He’s never really liked any of them, but he especially doesn’t like Feuilly, some skinny little sophomore who knows zir shit better than any of the ones who have been there longer. College tuition is expensive, and while it’s not strictly against the rules to get involved with performers, it’s definitely frowned upon, especially when the performer is in the theater so regularly as Bahorel.

Immediately, Bahorel’s on the other side of the counter, helping zir clean it up. Their hands bump, and Bahorel catches zir fingers, tugging zir forward.

“ _Feuilly._  Look at me.” Feuilly does, and Bahorel leans forward to catch the back of zir skull and cradle it in one massive hand. “Your manager won’t give you shit. For starters, that’s probably discrimination, because you know some cis kid fooling around with me wouldn’t even get a slap on the wrist. Besides, your manager’s probably terrified of me. Come on. Just think on it, okay?”

Feuilly scowls, shakes zir head, but somehow falls forward into a bruising kiss, grabbing the front of Bahorel’s shirt and breathing in the taste of coffee and spearmint gum like an elixir. They both start back when the chime of the door breaks past their kiss-born haze, and Feuilly wipes zir spit-slicked mouth with the back of zir hand, standing and clearing zir throat as ze accepts the customer’s credit card. Bahorel just leans against the counter beside Feuilly, legs stretched out and crossed in front of him.

“You should probably go,” Feuilly says, and Bahorel just nods. He’s about to leave when Feuilly yanks him back over, kisses him like ze wants to swallow him whole, tongue and teeth and wandering hands and bruising fingers.

When they pull away, Bahorel lets out a questioning sound, and Feuilly flushes, ducking zir head. It’s a testament to how genuine and  _good_  Bahorel is that he doesn’t comment, doesn’t ask a damn thing, just slips out, leaving the coffee behind him.

The chime of the closing door makes zir cringe. The bitterness comes flooding back at the taste of the coffee he left. Feuilly doesn’t pretend that ze doesn’t fit zir mouth exactly where Bahorel’s had been on the cup.

\------

Jehan could scream.

He was expecting a nice night; he was expecting some eyelash fluttering and blushing and fingers brushing when they both reach for the wine list. He prepared himself for a complete flop of an evening but he was expecting something nice.

He doesn’t get something nice.

His date with Marcelin de Courfeyrac, baritone and absolute king of charm, does not go as planned.

See, what Jehan doesn’t know to factor into the equation is that Courfeyrac is genuinely perfect.

Before Grantaire leaves for work he stops by Jehan’s apartment, flashes Jehan a fond smile before rummaging through his drawers, and produces the tightest black jeans Jehan owns, a burgundy button-up, and a black vest. Top few undone, he instructs as Jehan pulls the shirt on, and leave the vest buttoned. Makes it look more like a waistcoat than a cheap-ass vest you got at Hot Topic.

Jehan is long-since past trying to defend Hot Topic to Grantaire and instead just nods along, letting his friend dress him. For someone whose default is plaid button-ups left open with the sleeves rolled up to hide cigarette burns and jeans he’s worn every day for the past week Grantaire can be something of a  _complete_  hottie when he wants to be.

Hair brushed and down, framing his face in that lovely way that brings out the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the long, straight nose, he answers the door to find a bouquet of roses, which are soon joined by Courfeyrac’s smiling face.

“I wasn’t sure if they’d be a good idea,” he says, and Jehan can feel his face flushing and his cheeks burning, “since you work in a flower shop, and Cosette said roses were way too cliche, but I mean, Combeferre said that at least the gesture would be nice, and I trust Combeferre, even though I think he’s watched Serendipity too many times, but… I’m talking too much, aren’t I?”

And it  _would_  be way too cliche except that the roses are in that stage just before they bloom fully, so full of the promise of new life and beauty, and they’re not scarlet, they’re a darker red the color of wine rather than the color of blood, and Jehan has to suppress a sound of elation as he takes the flowers and practically buries his face there, breathing in deeply.

“I wish you’d talk more,” he says, bold, because Jehan doesn’t believe in sparing words where they’re necessary.

Their fingers do touch when they both reach for the wine menu. They do laugh and smile and Courfeyrac keeps talking, about everything—about Tosca, about his role, about his friends (Cosette is playing Tosca, Combeferre and Enjolras are his best friends, dubbed the “Triumvirate of Awesome”, doubtlessly by Courfeyrac, Bahorel is his roommate), about anything and everything. And Jehan is hungry for more, just keeps asking, favorite book, favorite film, favorite character in literature, favorite poem author mythological creature color curse word aesthetic Oscar Wilde play. Jehan devours everything Courfeyrac gives him, so much so that he barely registers what he’s eating because he’s watching the lovely way Courfeyrac’s mouth moves.

Jehan doesn’t get a nice night, he gets a  _perfect_  night, so perfect he almost forgets to be nervous as dinner draws to a close.

Hands touch and bump as they walk, too close for acquaintances or colleagues, not yet close enough for lovers. Jehan wants to wrap his arm around Courfeyrac’s waist, slide his hand into the other man’s pocket, run his thumb along that delicious space between his trousers and his shirt when he lifts his arms. He wants to trace the shape of Courfeyrac’s lips with the tip of his tongue, write villanelles along his chest and erase them with a scrape of his teeth.

He wants skin on skin and breathing in the same air and Courfeyrac’s fingers tangled so tightly in his hair he can’t breathe.

Courfeyrac clears his throat and glances down at Jehan with a small smile. He’s at least a head and a half taller than Jehan and the poet swoons at the very thought. He  _loves_  height differences.

“We’re gonna do that thing, aren’t we? The will-we-won’t-we? Unless you’re not actually all that interested in me, in which case we’re totally not, but—”

“I’m interested,” Jehan promises, and they take a turn to wander towards the back of the restaurant, to the garden, and, emboldened, Jehan laces his fingers into Courfeyrac’s and steadfastly looks straight ahead.

When they get to the garden behind the restaurant and they’re surrounded by flowers, silent except for the slow trickle of the fountain at the center of the path that cuts straight through the flora, Courfeyrac lets out a soft but  _hungry_  sound and turns to Jehan, release his hand just to cup it against Jehan’s cheek.

They stand there for several moments, unmoving, and Jehan can hear Courfeyrac’s breathing.

“I’m going to kiss you, if that’s alright,” he says, and Courfeyrac just nods, helpless, as Jehan winds both arms around the other man’s neck and presses a single, careful kiss to his lips.

When he pulls back Courfeyrac’s eyes are closed and his lips are curving upward. “We will,” he murmurs, and now it’s Jehan making hungry sounds as Courfeyrac surges forward.

One date is hardly enough to know that you’re madly deeply desperately in love.

Jehan knows this.

Jehan  _knows_  this.

\------

To be totally honest this entire situation sucks.

Cosette doesn’t comment when Bahorel doesn’t work as quickly as usual, but she does jump behind the bar when it gets a little less busy on the floor, and for that, he’s grateful. She’s always had an innate sense about her friends; it’s part of why he got her the job in the first place. As her customers start to trickle out of the restaurant she becomes a semi-permanent fixture, her black bow tie undone around her neck and the top three buttons of her white shirt undone. She makes small talk, dark curls falling loose from the bun she’d pulled them back into, and nobody says anything if they notice how distracted Bahorel is tonight.

He doesn’t laugh with the customers the way he usually does, even Eponine, the English student who works at the pastry shop across the way and who comes in every now and again for a drink after work and a laugh with Cosette, whom she’d known as a child.

It’s easy to pretend that it’s not concern about this whole mess with Feuilly. Cosette’s been wondering if there hasn’t been something between them, but she doesn’t ask, and it’s easy, it seems, for him to pretend that it’s just a rough night, an off night. It’s easy until Feuilly comes in, stands uncomfortably at the front of the restaurant, and watches Bahorel make someone a Manhatten.

Cosette doesn’t look at either of them, wanting to give them what privacy she can in the restaurant. Bahorel pretends not to notice at all, crouches down to pick up an ice cube he’d dropped before anyone can slip on it.

By the time he’s standing, Feuilly’s gone, and it’s a lot harder to pretend now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow wow wow a month I am so sorry it's taken me so long to update
> 
> between school and stuff going on at home (I went from finals to a family emergency and I'm still not sleeping enough haaaaaaaaah) it's just been hell to try and write anything but I DID IT!!! Unfortunately this really isn't that good--I was told "this really isn't your best" and it's not and for that I am genuinely sorry.
> 
> however I have a chapter and a PLAN~ And summer's starting and this family emergency should be over soon or I swear I'm going to join a Benedictine monastery (I'm not a Catholic man so they'd probably kick me out oops) but anyway!!! I am so sorry for making you wait so long!!!
> 
> there has been ART!!!!! Some of it even for my birthday oh wow cutes c:
> 
> -http://theydieholdinghands.tumblr.com/post/50864789800/today-is-the-lovely-anis-birthday-so-i-drew-her  
> -http://theydieholdinghands.tumblr.com/post/49388908213/genderqueer-feuilly-inspired-by-anis-fic
> 
> gyee I love it so much I love that people love Feuilly bc ze's the coolest c:
> 
> My fancast can be found here: http://ccosettefauchelevent.tumblr.com/post/51562110575/ccosettefauchelevent-tenorjolras-fancast-so-a and if anyone is so inclined and wants to make art/playlists/anything for this 'verse please tag it with Tenorjolras, or my URL, ccosettefauchelevent, on Tumblr :D
> 
> anyway thank you so much for your patience and I love you all a lot :*
> 
> for Lily, as always; and my forever thanks to Elizabeth, Lindsay, Kaitlyn, and Emily!!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, lovelies!
> 
> This 'verse is for the darling Lily (astrid_fischer), light of my life. Huge thanks to everyone who's been reading and helping me out with it, especially Lily, Emily, Kaitlyn, Elizabeth, and Chesh. :)
> 
> (feel totally free to drop by my tumblr [duskjolras] with any questions or requests in this 'verse!)
> 
> (In this 'verse, Cosette wasn't adopted by Jean Valjean, but Eponine was. Hence, Cosette Thenardier and Eponine Fauchelevent.)


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